The militarization of police: an adult discussion

Let's get that adult discussion going about the militarization of police, as Chris Martenson suggested. We should have the same discussion nationally and internationally, but as with most of those adult discussions we should be having and aren't (eg. resource depletion, energy use) it will be easier to get it going here first.

Here's an article about the situation in Ferguson, MO which touches on this subject of militarization of police quite well. Watch out for the "adult" language (and skip the article if you're easily offended by such things).

Here's the relevant part of the above article that deals with the militarization of police:

Next group of assholes: Officer Safety and his merry band of stormtroopers

Like I said earlier, the initial collision between what appears to be the criminal and the cop is not what I am going to discuss here, BECAUSE ALL OF THE FACTS ARE NOT IN. However, with the news of the initial autopsy and the cop’s orbital skull fracture, all does not seem to be as the media is portraying it. In any case, let’s talk about MRAPs, carbines, body armor, and jocked-up dudes “operating” within these United States.

Before I go any further, let me state this. I am 100% behind the SWAT/SRT missions of hostage rescue, active shooter eradication, and apprehension of a violent felon. A violent felon is not a guy that writes “fuck the government” on his Facebook page, no matter what Tumblr social justice warriors, Eric Holder, and the staff at CNN say. He’s the guy that beats the daylights out of his woman and threatens to “kill anyone that tries to stop me” after pulling out his Romanian AK and smoking the last of his meth. Preservation of life is the metric for the use of these teams.

In the photo above, I see one LE guy with a pepper ball gun, another guy with a baton, and it looks like the rest have locked and loaded M4s pointed directly at Mr. Citizen. These guys look a lot more like a bunched up rifle squad on hadji patrol in a third world country than peace officers sent to restore order. If someone threw a firecracker behind this squad, would Mr. Citizen have been aired out? The escalation of force policy seems to be up at 11. Maybe swap out the carbines for some bean-bag shotguns, plastic shields, and more pepper ball guns with one dude in the middle with the M4 in case things get hairy? Once you point a loaded carbine at someone’s chest, what’s next? If the concept of theStrategic Corporal was huge factor in our fights in Iraq and Afghanistan, what do you think SWAT guys ventilating protestors are going to do in this situation?

Furthermore, arresting and tear-gassing journalists is China-level shit. I don’t trust journalists, but their activities are protected and sworn peace officers are sworn to protect said activities. The bully-boy show needs to stop.

As far as all the gear and equipment, I really don’t care. I don’t. I have a lot of that shit in a locker at home myself. My view is if the police can have it, I should have it. Anything that I am restricted from owning, so should be the police. So let’s abolish the NFA, get those SBRs, cans, Lahtis, Solothurns, and other goodies out there to the rest of us freedom-loving patriots, and get back to letting freedom ring as the Founding Fathers designed it.

But I digress.

The reality is, there are a lot of dangerous, psycho shitheads in this country, and you need to be able to fight them when they go feral. To that end, what I object to about the Militarization of Law Enforcement®, is the MINDSET that has taken hold with the proliferation of SWAT/SRT and the use of military tactics on civilians by their public servants. The over-reliance of cool-guy gear and assault team tactics as a substitute for good policing and intel gathering is wrong. The video below captures EVERYTHING that I find detestable about the overuse of SWAT/SRT.

That right there is how you teach a young girl how to hate the police for her entire life. You might call it “Creating Guerrillas 101.”

It’s raids like these, and raids over raw milk, poker games, guitar wood, and quite frankly,search warrants, that I find objectionable. The idea that we need to bring maximum violence to every situation in the name of “Officer Safety” is paradoxical and stupid. We are a country with 80 million gun owners, and we have enough stupid laws and regulations on the books that any of us could be committing three felonies a day without knowing it. You go for a 100% compliance regime and kick in someone’s door at 3am for watering his lawn on the wrong day, someone is going to get shot, either unlucky homeowner or jocked-up SWAT guy. Rousting people out of bed and running and gunning through their homes while they are groggy and trying to figure out what the hell is happening is a recipe for disaster. It must stop.

Couple this with the “everyone is a terrorist” mindset that the feds, with help from the loons at the Southern Poverty Law Center and their fellow travelers, are drilling into their people as well as any state and local units they train, and you have heavily armed dudes thinking the citizens of the US are as bad as al Qaeda because they don’t drink the big government Kool-Aid. You have goobers like Sheriff Joey Terrell, the man who’s goon squad flashbanged an infant, justifying his incompetence and brutality by categorizing a meth dealer as a terrorist, so that justifies blowing a hole in an infant’s chest. That’s just plain sick.

Until the shield of sovereign immunity can be altered so idiots like Sheriff Terrell and his knuckle-dragging minions pay PERSONALLY for their transgressions instead of offloading the liability on the very taxpayers they victimize, this foolishness will continue.

Law enforcement needs a course correction in these United States. Leave the MRAP behind, get out of the cars, walk the streets, and talk to the people you serve.

* * * * * * * * *

I can say I completely agree with the above, though not necessarily with the "colorful" way of expressing it.

1. Police need the training and equipment necessary to handle the threats they are likely to face (threats that have been demonstrated in history, and threats that can be realistically envisioned based on history and current events.)

2. The deployment of the training and equipment must be very carefully applied only to situations where they are definitely needed. This must be carefully overseen by wise and professional law enforcement leaders and political leaders.

3. Perhaps the greatest dangers and abuses come from LEO's and their commanders overreacting to situations that don't require a semi-military or military response.

4. Fortunately, these issues are amenable to political activity since elected sheriffs and elected mayors who oversee appointed chiefs/commissioners are quite susceptible to political pressure from the people to reign in and prevent the abuses.

That ought to get the conversation going.

Tom

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65 Comments

For this eye opening post. It cuts right to the chase. The video from David Carroll is devastating to the many vested interests who divert attention away from root causes and facts. It is offensive to just about every political point of view out there, which leads me to believe it contains honesty and wisdom.

The best first comment is that LEOs are people, humans - and humans are prone to make mistakes.

I remember in the late 60's and early 70's there was a public outcry because "liberal" judges would release criminals because a LEO hadn't followed proper procedures, gotten the proper warrant, failed to Miranda a suspect that was being arrested etc. even when those suspects were most likely guilty of the crimes they were being charged. Later, those same individuals would only be arrested again for even more violent crimes! I now believe it wasn't the fact that judges were too soft on crime, (I'm sure some were) it was more that they were trying to send a message to law enforcement that an individual's rights shouldn't be trampled just to obtain a conviction.

As late as the 80's I know of a case where a person was clearly guilty of vehicular homicide and was set free because the state police - instead of filing charges that would assure conviction and then were backed up by an ADA who had his eyes set on the statehouse went for murder one because the driver was drunk. Needless to say they LOST big time because they couldn't make their case for premeditation. It was the defense atty. that went on to become the state atty general!

Don't forget that drug dealers and gang members at one point became better equipped than local LEOs.

What has this got to do with militarization of the police? I hope to paint a picture where the public wanting to be "protected" from violent criminals who they saw as "getting off" because of the "soft" judges, became willing to give up liberties by encouraging lawmakers to enact legislation that would "protect" them.

The "ultraconservatives" were only too happy to comply. This after all gave them more and more control and power. The law enforcement community was on board with the stricter laws because they had seen first hand how many criminals had walked out scot-free because of "too liberal" laws.

Now, add in there the military industrial complex needing to sell more hardware because after all, the last two gulf wars didn't consume as much of certain types of gear (read less soldiers lives lost) so to continue to have outrageous profits that gear had to go somewhere...

Voila! send it to local law enforcement agencies! Because we all know that there are those terrorists lurking EVERYWHERE!

Now here we have gear in the hands of individuals that were sworn to protect the same individuals they are being trained to use it on!! I mean, we all like "cool guns" right? And how about those even cooler night vision goggles and lets not forget armored vehicles!! Cool! Local cops can now play Desert Storm right here in their own back yards!!

I go back to my first comment, LEOs are humans, humans make mistakes. Improperly trained or under trained humans make bigger mistakes. We are all taught during concealed carry classes that once a weapon is un-holstered, someone is going to get shot. If you are not willing to pull the trigger, don't draw the weapon. Right? But LEOs are different right? Are they? I am not sure if this paragraph has wandered off topic or not.

Anyone remember Kent State? I was eleven. I was growing up in Ohio and remember it well. College students shot by deployed National Guardsmen. Back then, local police were not equipped like soldiers. Now, they are.

A Gallup Poll taken immediately after the shootings showed that 58 percent of respondents blamed the students, 11 percent blamed the National Guard and 31 percent expressed no opinion.[42]

Then - Soldiers Now - Police

Students, protesting an unpopular war. Throwing rocks at heavily armed soldiers, not exactly well though out and emotional response, but when is protesting ever not an emotionally charged event. "Hands up, don't shoot."

So fast forward to today. We have local police, armed to the teeth, making military style entry into homes and businesses for the heinous acts of selling raw milk, making guitars, and searching homes because some police chief was threatened and called names on the internet. At what point do the grown-ups take charge and deescalate the situation.

"Police need the training and equipment to handle the threats that they are likely to face." That seems to be that's what they are getting. It would appear that the Powers That Be are setting up death squads in preparation for potential civil disturbance, insurrection, revolution. Apparently TPTB are as surprised as the rest of us that the shit hasn't hit the fan yet, and find themselves in the awkward position of having merry bands of storm troopers who are all dressed up with nowhere to go. The parallel campaign to terrorize the general public into believing that there is a deranged, homicidal, manic behind every bush would seem to result in the politically embarrassing theater of the absurd in which hundreds of people barricade themselves in sobbing terror while a SWAT team is deployed against a man with an umbrella.

It is going to be interesting to see if the President or his handlers feel that it would be politically expedient in the short term to ditch the current "Fear the Bogeyman" campaign in favor of a "Fight the Power" campaign. If the SHTF during a politically motivated "People Power" peasant revolution presidential campaign it could add in interesting twist to the transition.

I don't have any first hand knowledge of this dynamic, but it seems the Pentagon may have hatched the program to push used military equipment on to local police departments to clear their inventories so they could justify asking for the funding to get new and improved equipment. And the military industrial companies (i.e. the private contractors who build and supply the new and improved equipment) would have been on-board because they would stand to profit from filling the new Pentagon orders. The police departments who were approached by the Pentagon with offers of FREE military vehicles and hardware could easily have reasoned: "We'll probably only use this THING once in the next 20 years, if ever at all. But, what the heck, it's FREE! We'll take one (or three if you insist - see the above article)."

I don't have any first hand knowledge of this dynamic, but it seems the Pentagon may have hatched the program to push used military equipment on to local police departments to clear their inventories so they could justify asking for the funding to get new and improved equipment. And the military industrial companies (i.e. the private contractors who build and supply the new and improved equipment) would have been on-board because they would stand to profit from filling the new Pentagon orders. The police departments who were approached by the Pentagon with offers of FREE military vehicles and hardware could easily have reasoned: "We'll probably only use this THING once in the next 20 years, if ever at all. But, what the heck, it's FREE! We'll take one (or three if you insist - see the above article)."

Tom

Looks like I may have had this right in my earlier post?

Now, add in there the military industrial complex needing to sell more hardware because after all, the last two gulf wars didn't consume as much of certain types of gear (read less soldiers lives lost) so to continue to have outrageous profits that gear had to go somewhere...

Military surplus going to local communities has been going on for a long time however... In most instances, the equipment is of the "yard sale" variety and is either out dated or too old to be relied upon. Some very poor communities where I grew up, got some of the equipment when their fire chiefs came asking for new equipment. I remember old "duce-and-a-half" trucks were converted into a fire engine of sorts. When I saw them, they were big, ugly, old and looked like they came straight from WWII. The police chiefs in those communities got old pick-up trucks or K5 Blazers that were bare bones models. I guess beggars can't be choosers.

That is obviously not what is happening today...

From this snip from one article posted before:

Social scientists have trouble parsing how the distinct values and lifestyles of a close-knit police force, or police subculture, shapes the way officers actually react in the field. Peter A J Waddington, a social policy professor at the University of Wolverhampton in England, observed in the 1990s that officers tend to talk big or inflate their bravery or courageousness in the “canteen.” This makes it tough for researchers to fully analyze what is happening in the field.

But bloated militarylike responses take psychological tolls, Stamper says. When officers begin to dress like soldiers, their uniform and vocabulary of war reinforces their mind-sets. As they become more soldierlike and less peace officer–like, they become distanced from the community. “If you’ve taken on the identity of your badge and uniform, it’s not what you do, it’s who you are,” Stamper says. “Psychologically it’s a tragedy.”

As I said earlier, gone is the local "beat cop" patrolling the neighborhood keeping the kids from getting into mischief and "policing" the community. What we have today is a close knit band of militarized, ego inflated wannabe's.

In another account there was said that there are 800,000 police in the U.S.? Even if a small percentage are loose cannons, that is a lot of folks running around with a lot of guns, getting free passes when they commit a crime because they are part of the "close knit" club.

Lastly, the realtor commercial posted made me feel ill when I watched it. What a desensitization of an over use of force. All I saw was once again, the po-po busting in without any facts.

"Is police brutality and misconduct actually getting worse, or are portable video recorders allowing us to just now see what’s been happening all along? More importantly, is this situation going to improve any time soon?

"Our society needs police, good police, working on behalf of and in cooperation and trust with their communities to solve crimes and face legitimate criminals, but, unfortunately, there are many reasons to expect this trend to get worse before it gets better, and here are 5 of them."

"Knowing your rights and how to conduct yourself in any encounter with police or government agents is an essential civic responsibility, yet sadly, too many people don’t know or understand their rights. This may be changing for the better, however, as videos are also emerging of citizens effectively exercising their rights in situations with law enforcement. Knowing your rights works wonders when dealing with police, and it does appear that more people are finding the courage for non-compliance.

"What’s worse is that in many cases, law enforcement officers don’t even know the laws themselves. If both the population and the police are ignorant of the law, then we can expect, in the future, more cops to take advantage of this, and more citizens to passively tolerate this."

Over 200 top police executives gathered in Chicago for a meeting of the Police Executive Research Forum discussed the issue of "militarization of police." A variety of opinions were expressed, some contradicting each other.

"St. Louis County's top police officer said on Tuesday that the heavy-armored trucks and some of the military-style equipment used by police in last month's unrest in Ferguson helped keep civilians and law enforcement officers safe."

"In the closed-door session in Chicago about the Ferguson response that was led by Belmar and St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson, there was consensus that police departments need to establish strict guidelines for when and how military-equipment is used, said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum.

"When there is a Virginia Tech, when there is a Beltway sniper, when there is a Mumbai, the first responders are going to be American police and they need to know what they are doing with that stuff," said Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn. "That is going to remain a tension in this business that's not easily solved by knee-jerk responses to terms like militarization."

"Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey raised concerns that the national conversation is shifting to an "all-or-nothing" frame.

"You can't make the argument that you need zero equipment other than a patrol car and a baton," Ramsey said. "At the same time, the issue is around policies and training and it's about justifying. And in the end, there is probably some military equipment we don't need."

Not my field of expertise so I ask; I understand the police have to uphold the law, but do they have any fealty to the constitution? Or does that matter only apply if they remove their hat?

I could also ask county judges that question. Are all questions of the constitutionality of a law referred to the supreme court? Obviously a handful of cloaked people in Washington are more easily controlled than devolved power.

This video gives us a rundown on exactly they no longer teach the Australian Constitution in schools, why some are dead keen to become el Suprimo (Republican fantasies) and exactly we had the Port Arthur massacre. Hint: the half wit was a fall guy.

If this does not get the blood pumping, discontinue mouth to mouth resuscitation.

"St. Louis County's top police officer said on Tuesday that the heavy-armored trucks and some of the military-style equipment used by police in last month's unrest in Ferguson helped keep civilians and law enforcement officers safe."

Wow!

Here is a police chief rationalizing the use of military equipment against the general population.

Exactly how does this:

Protect civilians? Unless all the civilians they wanted to protect are inside that vehicle, I seriously doubt the ones outside were protected. In fact, the above photo looks like aggressors to me, not "protectors."

"I don't know how we can responsibly as police administrators not provide our young officers some protection," Belmar said.

Some protection? I would argue that if the equipment in the above picture is "some protection," then perhaps you have hired the wrong person(s) for the job.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey raised concerns that the national conversation is shifting to an "all-or-nothing" frame.

All or nothing? What does that mean? If we (the po-po) can't have our military weapons, tanks and trucks, then you (the citizens they are sworn to "protect") must mean that we can't have anything? This next comment makes my point:

"You can't make the argument that you need zero equipment other than a patrol car and a baton," Ramsey said. "At the same time, the issue is around policies and training and it's about justifying. And in the end, there is probably some military equipment we don't need."

In fairness, I pasted the whole quote that was in the article. Nice dance at the end of the comment. He should run for higher office. At the beginning of the quote, he states the "all or nothing" point. In the middle he mentions "justifying" (read rationalizing) and at the end he does concede that there is "probably, some military equipment we don't need." Need? police NEED military equipment? for what? Oh yeah, to "protect citizens... and young officers." Really?

The military industrial complex has shifted into high gear since 2000.

I leave you with this quote from a very rational WWII general some of you may know who he was:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."

And, "Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of ploughshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions."

DON’T THEY NEED IT TO FIGHT TERRORISM HERE AT HOME THOUGH? <military equipment>

Oxford County in rural western Maine received an MRAP through the program along with six other law enforcement agencies across the state. Oxford County Sheriff George Cayer explained that “the western foothills of Maine … currently face a previously unimaginable threat from terrorist activities.”

Those dang Canadian Moose! They come across the border in the still of the night. Committing unspeakable acts of terrorist activities.

Two courts have ruled in a CT case (figures this would come out of nanny state CT), that applicants for police officer positions who score TOO HIGH on intelligence tests can be denied employment because they are overqualified and won't fit in.

Of cause they need the toys. The nice salesman said so, after scaring the pants off da Boss.

It is not too hard to understand. The police are a specialized unit that is trained to deal with civilian violence. If the violence becomes military then one calls up a specialized unit to deal with military violence. You call up the military.

I was a professional soldier a very long time ago and off duty I went on an exercise with a policeman friend. I was like a fish out of water. It was all chalk and cheese.

Thanks for taking this topic on Tom. The militarizing of our police is certainly disturbing but so is the GROWTH of our police, sheriffs, metro cops, school police, constables, deputies, not to mention Homeland Security and all the Federal agents. I have made a habit of paying attention to just how high a percentage of overall traffic is composed of some type of police and there is no doubt its increasing (but I certainly don't feel safer because of it). I find it very refreshing when I visit a place (usually overseas) and don't see the ubiquitous police everywhere. How are we going to afford all this protection (I never have found an opportunity to vote against increased expenditures on more police protection). How do we stop this constant increase? What happens when we are too broke to afford police right when we might actually need them (ie WTSHTF)?

The police are a specialized unit that is trained to deal with civilian violence. If the violence becomes military then one calls up a specialized unit to deal with military violence. You call up the military.

That makes sense, and it may be what's done in other countries, but in America we are very skittish about the military conducting any operations for anything within the country. Therefore, the police and other law enforcement agencies have to be prepared to handle "low level" military threats wherever and whenever they may occur. If something like the Mumbai terrorist attack where to occur in the US, I seriously doubt the military would respond no matter how logical it would be for Navy SEALS, Army Delta Force and Marine Force Recon to take on such an attack. The local and state police, backed up by the FBI, would have to handle it as best they could.

For instance, near midnight on Sept. 12, a male now believed to be Eric Frein took up an ambush position in the woods adjacent to the Blooming Grove barracks of the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) in rural northeastern PA. As troopers were coming in from the road to report off duty and a fresh crew where pulling into the parking lot to begin their shifts, Frein opened fire. Using a scoped hunting rifle in .308 caliber, Frein shot and killed Cpl. Bryon Dickson and critically wounded Trooper Alex Douglass. Then he slipped away in the darkness and for some reason only escaped about 20 miles away where he lived with his parents. He abandoned his car and disappeared into the heavily forested Pocono mountains. Troopers, local police and the FBI have been intensely searching for Frein in the woods. Frein is evidently an excellent marksman and has been planning his wilderness murder and escape for years. Personally, I don't see how more officers can possibly not get shot searching for this killer, unless he just gets tired of his survival exercise and simply gives up. Because of the extreme nature of the threat even though it's from just one man, law enforcement is using a great deal of equipment many would lump in with "the militarization of police." Many of the searchers are wearing combat camouflage clothing, ballistic helmets, and heavy duty military hard body armor (typical police soft body armor is useless against rifle rounds). They are carrying handguns and AR15 rifles, some of which can fire in full automatic or 3 round burst modes. Some are equipped with night vision and infrared optics. Some are carrying sniper rifles similar to what Frein has. Helicopters are in the air. At least one armored vehicle is involved to help provide cover against well aimed rifle fire should they corner Frein. Electronic warfare equipment is being used and just the other day picked up the signal from Frein's cell phone when he turned it on and tried to call his parents. Forces were directed to the location of the signal and they almost caught him. In spite of all that, I doubt many would complain about this operation being an example of the militarization of police. Most people would recognize the severe nature of the threat and the wisdom of law enforcement in equipping themselves appropriately for the task. It's when weapons and tactics intended for severe threats like this are trotted out for routine police tasks (crowd control, non-violent warrant service) that people get upset (and rightly so). I think we'd be wise to focus less on the equipment and more on wise and proper tactics, enforcement calibrated appropriately to the situation, etc. Later on in a subsequent post, I plan to provide a brief rationale why various pieces of equipment might theoretically be the perfect tool for a particular law enforcement task in spite of being totally inappropriate under 98% of situations faced by police. Police learn from the failures and mistakes of other police forces (from all over the world) and every piece of equipment you see today was just the perfect solution to some previous critical incident for which the police found themselves ill-equipped and unprepared.

Two courts have ruled in a CT case (figures this would come out of nanny state CT), that applicants for police officer positions who score TOO HIGH on intelligence tests can be denied employment because they are overqualified and won't fit in.

In recent years, the court has made it very difficult, and often impossible, to hold police officers and the governments that employ them accountable for civil rights violations. This undermines the ability to deter illegal police behavior and leaves victims without compensation. When the police kill or injure innocent people, the victims rarely have recourse.

I have no idea if these sorts of things are scheduled regularly or if they're fairly rare. I was wondering if current or former military or law enforcement people could give us an idea if this were fairly routine or not. Tom, Aaron, Rector, others?

One question I have is why does the military need to train outside of military bases when in the United States?

Realistic Military Training (RMT) is training conducted outside of federally owned property. The RMT process is designed to ensure proper coordination between DOD representatives and local and regional authorities. The process includes the following measures:

It certainly leaves me curious to know what they mean by "mastering the human domain." (See logo below.) Is there a need to train for military operations in an area populated by civilians? Is this practice for such an operation overseas, or even within the U.S.?

I retired from the USAF in 2011. Large-scale exercises are common place. Training outside of military installations was not common but not unheard of, either. However, large-scale, multi-state CONUS training exercises, taking place in civilian neighborhoods, while military personnel wear civilian clothes and drive civilian vehicles, is something I've never heard of before now. And I certainly don't like the sound of it.

I've never been aware of this kind of training in Philadelphia or involving anyone in my department. And I don't like the sounds of it either. It appears to be exactly the kind of training that would precede federal, state and local law enforcement honing their skills and procedures before engaging in counterinsurgency operations against Americans on US soil. In fact they don't seem to be making the most feeble efforts to convince the public that the training is designed for any other purpose (as if they're purposely trying to intimidate). Did I say: I don't like sounds of it. My dept's limited interaction with the Feds is usually limited to joint task forces on major drug and organized crime investigations (DEA, FBI, US Attorney), pursuit of "most wanted" individuals (FBI and US Marshall's), and augmenting our special units for special events like the upcoming visit by the Pope and the 2016 Democratic Natl Convention (Secret Service, FBI, military bomb squads, etc). And what if a local cop sees four heavily armed guys driving through his town and draws his weapon on them thinking they are gang bangers? Or what if the same cop sees the same thing and mistakenly assumes they're part of the exercise only to be caught off guard and killed by actual gang bangers/bank robbers? And that's just scratching the surface of the many things that could go wrong.

Anyway, if they think they have a legitimate need to train for counterinsurgency operations against Americans they should tell us that, and why. "An adult conversation" should ensue nationwide (I'm not holding my breath on either of those points).

In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko shows how politicians’ ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier. His fascinating, frightening narrative shows how over a generation, a creeping battlefield mentality has isolated and alienated American police officers and put them on a collision course with the values of a free society.

The book really lays out and scrupulously documents just how we got to the point of endemic 'no-knock' raids, SWAT units in every podunk town, and more military gear than can be imagined (grenade launchers!). Training courtesy of special forces personnel. It will curl your toes and boil your blood at the same time. Many people have been accidentally killed (civilians and cops) during these shock and awe home invasions of non violent offenders based on dubious unverified sources with numerous wrong addresses assaulted (oops, sorry we destroyed your house and killed your child, nobody will prosecute). Names, dates, locations and records all provided.

I have participated in this type of event previously - albeit was on the east coast. The geographical spread creates space and time in the exercise so it is more realistic (rather than everyone loading up in a helicopter, flying in a circle, and landing at the new "DZ" 500 meters away). Since it's "interagency" it includes law enforcement as well as military but appears to be focused on Special Forces - specifically US Army Special Forces "Green Berets" (which is a hat, not a soldier). My bet is that the "interagency" part will be police role playing as Freefor and the enemy. Anyway - big Unconventional Warfare exercises like this have been going on for years - in fact "Robin Sage" which is the culmination exercise that all SF soldiers must pass to complete the Qualification Course, is a UW exercise across a large chunk of North Carolina. It looks similar to this "Jade Helm" exercise, only smaller. Most of the locals routinely participate as citizens of "Pineland". Not unusual.

My opinion - this isn't the part of police militarization that we need to worry about - this is just an exercise in UW by the same soldiers who have had this mission since Vietnam. I worry more about "asset forfeiture laws", police corruption, gun control, and social decay and violent behaviours that put officers in a survival mindset. One of the reasons behind the trend from Barney Fife to SWAT is the a good portion citizens of the United States are prone to violence and are untethered from any morality.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Benjamin Franklin

First, let’s cover what Joint Military Exercise Jade Helm 15 is not: it is not a covert plan for the military to conquer the Southwest and institute martial law. And no, the hundreds of special operations troops and thousands of other military personnel taking part in Jade Helm 15 are not bad guys who are out to establish tyranny in America. Those are straw man arguments, posited to be rejected.

But the elimination of the straw men does not mean that Jade Helm 15 is benign. Reality check, please: does anybody reading this seriously believe that President Obama is contemplating dropping thousands of American troops across an area as vast as the space covered by Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen and Egypt? If you believe that, then I will give you a special discount when you buy any two of the eleven New York metro area bridges and tunnels that I currently own.

Many will say, “But the Green Berets have been doing this kind of thing with exercises like Robin Sage for years and years. It’s exactly the same thing. It’s no big deal.” These people are either paid shills, or well-meaning but naïve dupes. Note the motto of Jade Helm 15: “Master the human domain.” From our military to our intelligence agencies to federal law enforcement, Social Network Analysis is a booming field, a field which is now stretched to include imposters and liars paid by the post to influence social media trends. This government-sponsored social media influencing begins in the understandable realm of legitimate foreign counter-terrorism, but today the all-seeing eye is increasingly aimed inward at perceived domestic threats...

Google keywords like “military drill training exercise urban warfare helicopters” and see how many of our cities have already been treated to simulated “Black Hawk Down” battles, complete with booming explosions, midnight helicopters swooping at rooftop level, and plenty of ratatat-tat. Step by step we are being conditioned to living in a battlefield state of mind. Full dress rehearsals for all-out urban warfare are becoming the new normal in the Land of the Free.

To what purpose? Well, to what purpose does the chef slowly turn up the heat under the frog pot? If and when the time comes that the federal government decides to eliminate some pesky nests of sedition in the name of national security, folks living just a few miles away will simply yawn and change television channels, placid as cows chewing cud. Operation Jade Conditioning: mission accomplished.

The second objective of Joint Military Exercise Jade Helm 15 is to practice simultaneously operating all of the control levers of armed federal power on American soil, from major military units and federal law enforcement agencies down to the state police and local law enforcement. (Posse Comitatus? Heavens, no. It’s just a training exercise!)

When the time comes to eliminate those pockets of bitterly-clinging dead-enders standing in the way of social progress that Team Obama seems to hate with far greater vigor than it hates the Islamic State or Al Qaeda, the federal bosses will already know which county sheriffs and chiefs of police are “reliable.” That is, reliable in the KGB or Stasi meaning of the world. Click your heels, Sheriff, and set up the roadblocks as instructed. It’s a federal order! Do it just like we did it last year.

Again, it’s Operation Jade Conditioning. Ditto for our generals being conditioned to take orders from civilian bureaucrats for military deployments directly into American cities and towns.

That’s my opinion. Or, you can choose to believe that President Obama is actually getting our military primed and ready for simultaneous spec-ops team insertions across the entire Middle East from Egypt to Iran, and Syria to Yemen, the same geographical area covered by Joint Military Exercise Jade Helm 15.

Thanks Tom, Rector and Trun. It's good to have some more experienced people weigh in on Jade Helm.

My favorite quote from the Bracken article, with one slight modification:

When the time comes to eliminate those pockets of bitterly-clinging dead-enders standing in the way of social progress that [the Deep State]* seems to hate with far greater vigor than it hates the Islamic State or Al Qaeda, the federal bosses will already know which county sheriffs and chiefs of police are “reliable.” That is, reliable in the KGB or Stasi meaning of the world. Click your heels, Sheriff, and set up the roadblocks as instructed. It’s a federal order! Do it just like we did it last year.

We are going to see some amazing things in the next couple of decades.

Hugh

*Bracken wrote Team Obama here. While it may be the Obama admin that is specifically disliked in Bracken's online circles, anyone who thinks that this is about just one leader is missing the chronic decay of democracy into authoritarianism, hence my preference for the Deep State label.

A key component of the controversial Jade Helm military exercise set to take part in nine U.S. states this summer will involve soldiers operating “undetected amongst civilian populations,” to see if they can infiltrate without being noticed.

The “realistic” military training exercise, which will involve the Green Berets, Navy Seals, and the 82nd Airborne Division, is set to take place from July 15-Sepember 15, but has prompted concerns after Texas and Utah were labeled “hostile” territory in documents related to the exercise.

A Houston Chronicle report reveals that soldiers will attempt to blend in with the local population in an effort to test the effectiveness of infiltration techniques. Residents will be advised to report “suspicious activity” during the exercise.

“They’re going to set up cells of people and test how well they’re able to move around without getting too noticed in the community,” said Roy Boyd, chief deputy with the Victoria County Sheriff’s Office. “They’re testing their abilities to basically blend in with the local environment and not stand out and blow their cover.”

By directly involving unwitting members of the local population, this aspect of the drill contradicts the Army’s assertion that, “The public can expect nothing much different from their day-to-day activities since much of exercise will be conducted in remote areas.”

Jim Stewart, chief deputy with the Brazos County Sheriff’s Office, told the Chronicle that the designation of Texas as “hostile territory” was merely a way of setting up a role playing exercise under which soldiers operate behind enemy lines...

No less than 17 different Texas cities will see an Army presence as part of the exercise, which will involve, “participants in civilian dress and civilian vehicles, military aircraft, low-altitude airdrops of personnel and weapons with blank rounds, to avert fearful reactions”...

Despite assurances that the training is to prepare troops for overseas missions, Army documents in the past have made clear that plans for martial law are in place for within the Continental United States (CONUS).

Jade Helm has also drawn comparisons to a 2012 scenario outlined by retired Army colonel Kevin Benson, in which the U.S. Military is used to crush an insurgent rebellion overseen by Tea Party militia members who take over the city of Darlington, South Carolina.

Personally, I'd be enthusiastic about an operation like this if it focused on training to deal with a terrorist attack like Mumbai in which coordination among military, Federal, State and local assets would be necessary to adequately respond. Police and military response in Mumbai was scandalously inept and greatly amplified the loss of life and destruction of property. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Mumbai_attacks

Instead, I am chilled at the thought that one of the goals of Jade Helm is to see how well US special forces personnel can infiltrate and blend in IN THE USA! That skill will have little crossover value for them in infiltrating Yemen for instance (which is the kind of mission they've been training for AND executing for decades anyway).

Wouldn't it be entertaining and a great value to those who evaluate the effectiveness of Jade Helm if some local citizens armed with real guns loaded with real bullets were to spot some of the infiltrators, apprehend them at gunpoint, and then call 9-1-1 (plus a variety of mainstream and alternative news outlets)?!

When I went to school, about 100 years ago, Alaska, after it became a state, was considered to be part of the North American Continent. When I order something online that "free shipping" rarely applies to Alaska, rather we are usually treated as an international order. Or, many companies choose not to ship to Alaska. What people usually mean is the contiguous United States. So the reference to CONUS, whether that includes Alaska or not remains to be seen.

I'll start off by saying that for the most part, I have respect for good cops, doing their jobs, trying to enforce laws to protect law abiding citizens. I can not imagine dealing with the segments of the population they have to deal with on a daily basis.

That said, and I know this is a little different than the topic that has been discussed above, but I am really fearful of what may come in a true breakdown situation. With all of the equipment and training different police forces have received from wars gone by, lets hope they are never turned on the American people.

I just want to bring this up, because it has been in the news up here in Vermont recently. In the last couple of months we have had SEVERAL stories of officers being charged with different crimes....so many it is really sad.

I didn't have to search very long to find these, they have all taken place since November, 2014. This took about five minutes of searching, and I think I missed a couple.

My point is this.....these are the good times...are we going to be able to count on the police in a truly bad situation? When none of them are getting paid? When their retirements have been stolen from them, too? When their families are at risk. Again, no disrespect to some of the good officers out there.

Not a knock against zero hedge or anything, but sometimes I just feel better knowing the mainstream press is onboard with the same perspective as ZeroHedge, which I love.

I take from this a couple of different things....first, I think it is difficult for us to truly understand the differences in culture and way of life that go on in another part of the world. Strangely enough, the Turkish, Kurdish, Islamic tensions which exist throughout the middle east have been a back burner interest of mine for years. It is amazing how many different groups there are in the middle east all striving for individual identity and recognition on some level. I think much of the law is probably designed to deal with the ISIS situation on Turkey's southern border and the always interesting leanings of the Kurdish populations. That said, these laws are very scary and it is sad people feel the executive branch needs this much power.

It is easy to see these laws go much further than current politics and that democratic principles in Turkey are being threatened. Scary.

Makes me think of the some of the anti-terror laws we have allowed to go through here in the U.S.

Apparently the US Military believes it needs training to be ready and able to counter an incipient insurgency in the USA or elsewhere. They have, therefore, determined to have an extensive military exercise this summer to test and enhance their readiness. Operation “Jade Helm”, which has been written about in the alternative press extensively, is planned to cover a dozen Western and Southern states, to include members of elite units from several branches of service, and to provide practice in coordinating with local officials.

Apparently anti-insurgent tactics such as infiltration, observation, targeting, and snatch-and-grab operations are to be practiced as part of this exercise.

A modest proposal: patriots of all sorts actively assist our Army by running our own exercises, supported by citizen activists and patriot groups, including three percent militias, that coincide with “Jade Helm” in time and place. Term this loosely organized group: “FreeFor”. We name our exercise “Ruby Tail”.

Instead of the army training only against the in-house “op-for”, let us help provide a more realistic training scenario by dramatically augmenting the size, diversity and cunning of the opposing force through this augmentation. It is, after all, a signature characteristic of Forth Generation Warfare (4GW) that opposition in typically networked, loosely coupled, not hierarchical, and their tactics are improvised and ever changing. While the American military has many fine attributes, being able to simulate real 4th generation insurgent tactics is not one of them, anymore than a classically trained musician can easily perform a convincing jazz solo.

Essentially FreeFor can step forward and aid the combined military force (let us call them GovFor) by providing interesting, unscripted opposition. In the process FreeFor will gain useful and extensive experience in training against the foe that many consider FreeFor’s most likely future opponent: combined government forces set on implementing martial law, gun confiscation, executive edicts or other unconstitutional and repugnant infringements of our liberties. (We term this hypothetical future event “the clampdown”, for short.)...

In summary: the US Military proposes to war-game against and among the American citizens, we propose that we American citizens war-game right back.

Because there is no existing hierarchy among elements of the population that are motivated to participate in operation Ruby Tail, this proposal can not and will not be voted on, approved, or put into effect by any command group. It stands complete as a text, a clear exposition of possibility and intent, and the publication and viral promulgation on various patriot forums shall constitute the only communication that GovFor should expect to encounter prior to the start of the now de-facto joint exercise.

Elements of the citizenry shall be engaged in protecting our freedoms through the exercise of our rights coincident with “Jade Helm”, we counter with “Ruby Tail”. Just as you require citizen acknowledgement of your plans and our tacit cooperation, so we too require the US Military to reciprocate with the good will, acknowledgement of our rights, and friendly yet competitive spirit the US Military is justly known for.

We are, after all, still: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Catherine Austin Fitts addresses the common sets of cover stories used to say "there wasn't really a plan (conspiracy)." It was all just an unfortunate string of coincidences.

Her experience was at HUD and concerned a massive, organized system of mortgage fraud that went all the way to the top of both banking and government. But how to hide such a massive system of fraud from the people? Four basic cover stories:

1. There was a little corruption.... A few bad apples took a few bribes and well, you know, somehow they got away with it....

2. The system is so complex that no-one could really see what was happening. The "fog of war" confused everyone. There was a "failure of imagination." No body could imagine that something like this might occur.

3. The government is so complex and those damn bureaucrats are so incompetent that they just can't get anything right. Complexity is an ideal places to hide a deception.

4. A few evil people messed things up for everyone. This is a variation on the "lone deranged gunman" or the "few bad apples" causing all the trouble. A regulator was lazy and took a coffee break right as the crisis happened and didn't get back to his computer and discover it for 2 hours.

Here is a story: Johnny didn't turn in his homework. The teacher asks about this and he explains: "The wind blew my paper out the window and my dad ran over it with the lawn mower." Ah yes, a string of unfortunate coincidences. We would never want to think that Johnny just did not do it.

Retired Army intelligence analyst, Captain Eric H. May, writes this piece for Global Research. His Army career centered on war game scenarios where he was a specialist in organizing the "opposing forces" (i.e.--the terrorist side) of the game. He was trained at the U.S. Army school for military intelligence officers at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

The easiest way to carry out a false flag attack is by setting up a military exercise that simulates the very attack you want to carry out. As I’ll detail below, this is exactly how government perpetrators in the US and UK handled the 9/11 and 7/7 “terror” attacks, which were in reality government attacks blamed on “terrorists.”

My aim, as a former military intelligence officer who spent five years with the U.S. Army 75th Division conducting military war games, is to convince the American people that the “next 9/11″ — constantly promised by officials and the media — is likely to be carried out under the guise of future military exercises. If the American people are aware of pending exercises and the danger they represent, then the exercises cannot “go live” and effect the very terror events that they are supposed to be rehearsing against.

I will pause and editorialize for a moment. This is the element that DaveF and treebeard also mentioned: We do not have to storm the barricades, we just need to understand the deception and not be deceived.

Interestingly, Eric May explains that the agency running the exercise is not necessarily the terrorist entity. The real attack can be inserted by another agency or even a foreign covert force with intimate knowledge of the war game.

Christopher Bollyn does a very excellent job showing that the 7/7 terror attacks in the UK, the 9/11 attacks, and the sinking of the Estonia off Sweden were real terrorist events inserted into the middle of war games simulating the events that actually occurred.

I submit this as a person who on the one hand values police protection and who personally knows, likes and respects several police officers. But, we have a problem. It has been labeled the "Comply or Die" mentality. And I am happy to have people on both sides of the issue here on PP looking at it.

“If you don't want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don't argue with me, don't call me names, don't tell me that I can't stop you, don't say I'm a racist pig, don't threaten that you'll sue me and take away my badge. Don't scream at me that you pay my salary, and don't even think of aggressively walking towards me.”

This issue struck home (again) for me with the arrest/beating of a young college student outside a bar here in my home town of Charlottesville on St Patricks day. The initial news reports are that the young black man left the bar intoxicated, used a fake ID, resisted arrest and shouted obscenities at the group of men (who it turns out were plain clothes ABC agents) yelled at him to lie down on the sidewalk. He was beaten up pretty badly. Then it turns out that he was not intoxicated, did not have a fake ID, did not come out of the bar but was turned away from the bar without admittance (due to his age of 20) and was reported by the doormen at the bar as being polite and respectful.

The young man, it turns out, was a 3rd year honor student at UVa.

This whole situation is really out of hand. The relationship of the citizens to the police is shifting badly. The citizens are presumed to be "the enemy."

What makes the police force a BLUE Meme structure (dedicated to maintaining order for the safety of everyone) from a RED Meme gang (able to use violence at a whim)?

Footage out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida shot earlier this week shows military and law enforcement practicing the internment of citizens during martial-law style training.

The clip shows armed troops arresting role players on the street before a column of prisoners are marched towards a mock internment facility. Black Hawk choppers are also seen whizzing between buildings.

The exercise was accompanied by very little media coverage. A Sun-Sentinel report said that Broward County police would be “assisting members of the U.S. Special Operations Forces who are undergoing urban warfare training.”

The drill, which was held in locations the military refused to disclose beforehand, began on March 17 and ended on Friday. 200 military personnel from all four branches, Air Force, Army, Marines and Navy, took part in the exercise.

“The goal is to prepare participants in realistic, unfamiliar training conditions before they deploy for combat overseas,” states the report. Residents were advised “not to be alarmed by the Black Hawk helicopters in the sky.”

Broward County also saw similar drills back in March 2014, when Navy SEALS practicing storming a university building from a helicopter.

Concerns continue to circulate that such drills are designed for dual purpose and are part of a plan to acclimate Americans to accept martial law in a time of national emergency. As we have exhaustively documented, the fact that preparations are being made to use the military during domestic unrest is manifestly provable.

The police will be the key to establishing an "overly organized society." They are the "one half of the working class" that will be used to control the other. Everything depends on whether the police are able to be convinced that:

1. The desires of the oligarchy represent legitimate "law and order"

2. And that the citizens can be made to seem to be a vilified and dangerous "other."

I believe that this type of war game on US soil where LE is tasked with controlling the citizenry is aimed at three goals:

1. To establish in law enforcement personnel, the unconscious habit (mind set, muscle memory) that it is normal round up citizens at gun point and put them in barbed wire enclosures.

2. To establish that local law enforcement are under a national command structure. Local LE cannot be allowed to think for themselves or reflect on their own conscience. They must lean that they are parts of a team where the thinking is done at higher levels (controlled by the oligarchy) and that their function is to obey orders.

A local sheriff is extremely unlikely to lock up the citizens of his own county who elected him to serve and protect them. But if orders to do so comes through a legitimate chain of command of a "combined task force" or "fusion center," many more would obey.

3. LE is being prepped to view citizens as an enemy. Vilification will need a big boost, next.

Soldiers deployed oversea don't have to worry about there families being targeted for reprisals. Law enforcement officers live in there local communities. What is their reaction going to be when they realize that while out following the orders of the "Higher ups" their wives, children, parents, in laws, relatives, homes, property, pets, etc. may be vulnerable? If only 3% of the population (the number said to have taken up arm in the first American revolution) gets mad enough to get up on their hind legs and do something, that's 10 million people taking potshots from the pucker brush. Quick Google search says 1.1 million active law enforcement, 2.2 million active military and reservists. Not great odds. Civilians don't have air support, but if dropping hellfire missiles on wedding parties overseas didn't seem to do much to win the support of the population over there, I don't think it will over here either.

'Coarse all they really have to do is stay alive for a month or two while the general population starves to death, then their good to go. Maybe all they really have to do is round up key technical people, hold a few strategic points, shoot anyone who gets too close, and wait for the dust to settle.